Stubborn Wills

With Hide in the kitchen cooking and Makoto there “helping”, I finally had some time alone to speak with my niece. Once again we’re back in the tatami room, now with all the doors closed and only the window open to let the breeze in.
Slowly I puff a cigarette and look across the table waiting for her to talk. Minutes pass by and I clear my throat and stare back at her. Still -nothing-. She’s just like him, sitting there with her lips pursed. It looks like it will be up to me to initiate this “conversation”.
“I’ve not been by here since your father died.” I say and keep my voice low, “I had nothing against him.” I tell her.
She nods, “Father said you visited his office a few times.”
I nod, “He wasn’t too far from the TMPD. We’d meet for lunch but not often.”
She keeps silent and again it seems like I’m going to have to talk to the wall.
“So did Toshiaki come to his funeral?”
“He did.” I look back at her and she’s sitting so -stiffly-.
“I suppose you’re not going to ask why I did not come right away.” The smoke drifts up slowly over my head.
She shakes her head, “It would be impolite and father had always complained that you are hard to track down.”
I smirk at that. If this weren’t a serious conversation, I’d probably say a rebuttal like, and who insisted I go leave Edo and train elsewhere? That it would be “good” for me to be far away from “trouble”? It is interesting of course because now I can laugh about it but it was no laughing matter when I was 19 and he was the “father” of the house. How ironic that now, the situation is reversed and here I am trying to figure out what to do with his daughter.
With a sigh, I tap the cigarette on the ash tray. “Although your father was my elder brother, I owe a debt to him that goes beyond his wardship.” I look back at her and see a rather confused look on her face. “So I hope you understand why I am rather disturbed by what I saw here this morning.”
“You mean Kinosuke-san?” She speaks but it’s hardly audible.
I nod and place the cigarette back on my lips. “How long has he been staying here?”
“Right after father died. He helped make arrangements for his funeral and then the paperwork needed to transfer his belongings to me.”
“Why did you not speak to your uncle Soma instead?”
She shakes her head, “Uncle, he was already up in arms with his own children and just having taken a new wife. I did not want to be a burden.”
Again her lips are pursed and the vigorous shaking of her head, reminds me of my rather bull headed brother.
“So it’s been more than a year then.”
“Hai… But I knew Kinosuke-san much earlier than that. I stayed at their house before when father was away working. And the Suzuki’s are people our family has trusted for a long time even going as far back as grandfather Yuusuke.”
“So you were told. By who? Them?”
“No. Not the Suzuki’s.” She places her hands on the table but doesn’t fidget and instead looks straight at me, “They would never do that considering what has happened. It was father who told me a long time ago when I was asking what happened to grandfather.”
I nod grimly. My father was not a subject often brought up in conversation in this house. His decision to buy a title, become a lowly instructor only to be killed for the same reason was not something to be talked about. Being a shizoku was the one true thing he wanted for himself and us, his children. Perhaps that’s why up to this day I still live by it unlike my brother who renounced it, choosing instead to become a merchant by trade. Of course now with the Meiji, the days of the samurai is quickly going to past.
“Yes we have a long history with the Suzuki’s but that is not a good enough reason…” I say. “To let him stay here and co-habit together. If your father was alive, I do believe he would oppose it.”
“But Kinosuke was always a loyal friend to father.”
“Being a loyal friend, does not justify this situation.” I drag on my cigarette deeply, “Have you ever thought what it really means to live with a man who is -not- your husband? Especially since he is twice your age. You and your father will be the subject of wagging tongues… Not only that, but you void your chances of finding someone who is more suitable for you if you insist living this way.”
“I do not care about what others think.” She gives me a steely look, “Let them think what they must.”
I shake my head. She speaks just like her father, our father and perhaps the men before us as well. Such stubborness bordering on stupidity. “He told me he wanted to marry you.” I say simiply and watch her reaction.
She nods, “He’s told me he was going to ask father but he passed away so suddenly… I told him that since I was already on my own, then it can’t be helped but he wanted to wait for you to come back.”
“So you are telling me that this is all rather innocent and just like he said “nothing happened”? That there was “no crime commited”?” I let out a breath. My head is starting to throb.
“He and I sleep in different rooms. And it’s been over a year since we’ve started living together… If something was going on, I don’t think we’d be having this conversation.”
I know exactly what she means. What she is leading to. It can’t be denied that I did see their belongings in different rooms… And the fact that she is not with a child after cohabitating for so long with a man twice her age… Suddenly I’m thrown back to those days in Tokyo, those afternoons when it only took me a few months to have a child with Hide. I was blind with passion back then, no sense of self-discipline nor restraint. And this man, her Kinosuke was able to do that? I sigh. He might be a better man than I am in that respect. But still, this gut feeling, almost as if Hiroaki himself is twisting my arm… There is something I am not doing.
“Uncle… I would like to stay with Kinosuke-san as his wife but he won’t have me…” She sighs, “until he gets “permission”. He says it’s necessary so that our families and their spirits would be content and happy for us.”
She has an exasperated look on her face. As if she thinks, no… rather as she says, this was not necessary. But at least in this instance, it seems I have less to worry about Kinosuke than with Yukiko. “I won’t say yes.” I tell her directly, “at least not yet. In the meantime, I’m going to talk to Kinosuke.”
“What for?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” I frown and stand up, “Even if he has “honorable” intentions, there is no way I will let him stay in this house with you.”
She stands up, “But… this is -my- house..”
“No this is -our- father’s house. Not just yours.” I could hear the sterness in my voice.
She turns around abruptly, as if she was going to say something but instead I see her narrow her eyes stopping herself from crying. The next thing I knew I was alone in the room while her footsteps could be heard upstairs, stopping only when I hear a door slam shut. I sigh and light another cigarette.